What’s it like for someone who is not a PhD economist to join the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, perhaps the most powerful set of economic policymakers in the world? Ask Daniel Tarullo, a law professor and senior economic policymaker in the Clinton White House, who served as Fed governor from January 2009 until April 2017 and oversaw the strengthening of the Fed’s regulation and supervision of banks in the wake of the global financial crisis.

On October 4 at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Mr. Tarullo reflected on his years as a monetary policymaker, particularly his questions about the usefulness of some often-used concepts and tools of monetary policy that rely on variables that are unobservable, such as the gap between actual and potential output and inflation expectations. After his remarks, Mr. Tarullo discussed his observations with Fed veterans and current Brookings senior fellows Donald Kohn (Robert V. Roosa Chair in International Economics) and Louise Sheiner (Robert S. Kerr Senior Fellow) and took questions from the audience.